10 Business Schools To Watch In 2025 by: Jeff Schmitt on January 20, 2025 | 102,058 Views January 20, 2025 Copy Link Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Email Share on LinkedIn Share on WhatsApp Share on Reddit Companies routinely battle for customers and talent. They want to be the first and the best – the most profitable and the most respected. And they’re always seeking out those small edges. See a gap? Fill it. Identify a trend? Project it. Smell weakness? Exploit it. Frame, plan, invest, recruit, and train. Reality is, the underlying fundamentals haven’t changed much. In every business failure, the same theme emerges time after time: the biggest threat is a failure of imagination. Business schools face the same issues. In business analytics, the question remains: how do you collect the right data to find the right patterns so you can take the right actions? With Artificial Intelligence, leaders are wrestling with how it works and how fast and how far to take it. Then, there are the timeless questions. When do you follow the pack – or strike out on your own? Where do you devote the most resources for the biggest return? Of course – how do you structure your operation to focus on the best opportunities? Those are the questions that keep business school administrators up at night. Some solutions they’ve devised are bound to spur their peers to action. At IMD Business School, the program has overhauled its curriculum to teach the skills that AI can never replace. Vanderbilt University’s Owen Graduate School is expected to sock $700 million into a Florida campus to educate the most underserved graduate business education market in the United States. Indiana University’s Kelley School is giving full-time MBA students the option to take their second year online, enabling them to get back to their careers sooner. By the same token, ESSEC Business is re-imagining business school education entirely through its Rise and Transcend strategies. Such developments make these business schools ones “to watch” in the coming year. How are they deviating from the norm? Why does it matter? What are the early returns? Since 2016, Poets&Quants has examined the business programs that are taking risks and pursuing opportunities to enhance the value of the MBA experience. From revamping programming to doubling down on strengths, here is what the most innovative business schools are doing now so students can re-shape how business will be done tomorrow. Kellogg Global Hub Northwestern University, Kellogg School of Management Twenty years is a long time. Over that period, Northwestern University’s Kellogg School has rifled through five deans and built a 415,000-square-foot Global Hub along the banks of Lake Michigan. Back in 2004, Philip Kotler ranked alongside Peter Drucker as the most influential thinker in business. The Cubs hadn’t yet broken the Curse of the Billy Goat. And Analytics, Artificial Intelligence, and Remote Work were futurist concepts. At the same time, Bloomberg Businessweek was the most influential business school ranking – and Kellogg reigned as the top MBA program in the world. And they led the pack from the Jacobs Center, a past-its-prime homage to the 1970s high school aesthetic. Since 2004, Kellogg had become another M7 school – unable to reclaim its #1 perch in any major full-time MBA ranking. That is, until now. Out of nowhere, Kellogg leaped 11 spots to rank 1st in Poets&Quants’ 2024-2025 MBA ranking – a weighted combination of The Financial Times, U.S News, Bloomberg Businessweek, LinkedIn, and Princeton Review rankings. Kellogg’s achievement also broke the stranglehold that Stanford GSB and the Wharton School held on the P&Q ranking. Since 2017, one or the other school has held the top spot. Now, Kellogg is in the driver’s seat, despite its highest ranking – 2nd – coming from The Princeton Review, which only carries a 10% weight in P&Q’s methodology. Strangely enough, Kellogg didn’t exactly make major strides in any particular ranking besides The Princeton Review (where it was unranked the previous year). It climbed from 9th to 6th in The Financial Times ranking, buoyed by improvements in areas like Alumni Networking and Weighted Salary. With U.S. News, Kellogg actually lost a spot to 3rd. However, the school made up for it by vaulting from 7th to 3rd in Bloomberg Businessweek. Notably, Kellogg raised their score in four of the five categories, including ranking 4th in Networking, 5th in Compensation, and 10th in Learning. Together, these three rankings account for an 80% weight with P&Q. LinkedIn garnered another 10% weight – and Kellogg moved from 6th to 5th here. However, Kellogg solidified the top spot based on its performance in The Princeton Review ranking, which is based on 18 distinct dimensions. Here, Kellogg ranked in the Top 10 across 12 dimensions – more than any other school. Notably, the school posted top 10 averages in five quality of life categories, which were based on survey responses from current students. They included Family Friendliness (2nd), Classroom Experience (3rd), Administration (7th), Best Professors (8th), and Campus Environment (8th). When The Princeton Review surveyed students about their school curriculum, Kellogg achieved the highest average score for its Management programming, along with ranking 4th for Consulting, 4th for Non-Profits, and 6th for Marketing. That was enough to knock down Stanford GSB, which dropped from 3rd to 15th in The Financial Times ranking and barely made an appearance in The Princeton Review. Kellogg MBA students in class Can Kellogg make the #1 ranking stick? Well, it’s awfully early, but the early inputs are promising. In the Class of 2026, the school achieved gender parity, after flirting with the milestone in the 48%-49% range during the three years previous. Average GMAT rose two points to 733 too. In terms of outputs, Kellogg lost ground in pay and placement – but so did just about every peer program except Columbia Business School. Call it a draw. That means Kellogg’s prospects might reside in student sentiment. You could say Kellogg – similar to MBA programs like Tuck and Haas – is a school students choose based on values and culture. That starts with the concept of team. According to school lore, Kellogg students will be involved in over 200 meetings over two years. That’s by design. The school views the future of work as a collaborative enterprise – one that requires flexibility, communication, cultural understanding, and relationship-building skills to orchestrate far-flung groups with very different backgrounds, capabilities, and workstyles. Such experiences give Kellogg MBAs a leg up when they enter the workforce says Greg Hanifee, associate dean for degree programs and operations at Kellogg, in a 2024 interview with P&Q. “Group work is still the predominant feature of being at Kellogg…Every course is structured around a team…We create pods of six to seven students and it is a chance for students to get to know each other at an intimate level. There is camaraderie and competition but everyone understands that the team matters more than the individual. I have been at Kellogg for 11 years and students really come to Kellogg for that group experience in the classroom, experiential learning, global travel and this idea that the community is paramount. Students learn that they can do great things if they rely on each other.” One example of this community spirit happens even before students step onto campus. Known as KWEST – Kellogg’s Worldwide Exploration Student Trip – the event takes place in summer when 20-25-member student groups meet at the airport without knowing where they are headed. Even more, students can’t share information about themselves like their education and previous jobs during the first few days until the ‘Big Reveal.’ In doing so, KWEST sheers away all the ornamentation, helping students learn “who” their Kellogg classmates are and not “what” they are in the words of 2024 grad Elizabeth Willis. After spending a week together in places like Thailand or Malta, MBAs continued to build off these relationships when they streamed into the Global Hub says second-year Brandon Fazal. “Kellogg students are among the most high-energy, open-minded, and friendly people I’ve ever met. The first few weeks on campus have been very exciting–everyone on campus is open to chatting and making plans, such as small group dinners or weekend trips to Chicago.” Jess Lanzillo, head creative of Dungeons & Dragons, spoke about building creative worlds at Kellogg’s first By Design Conference: Unlocking the Creative Advantage. Courtesy photo The innovative programming is another advantage that enables Kellogg to distance itself from rivals. There is the MMM program, a dual MBA and M.S. Design Innovation in partnership with the Segal Design Institute at the McCormick School of Engineering. Emphasizing design thinking, the program takes a deep dive into areas like artificial intelligence and human-centered design. In a separate collaboration with the McCormick School, Kellogg also developed MBAi, a joint MBA and MS in Design Innovation that runs five semesters. Emily Haydon, assistant dean for admissions and financial aid, describes the program as an “AI-focused MBA” that connects machine learning with data science and business fundamentals. In the process, graduates are better equipped to bring together the technical and business sides of their enterprises. “My MBAi equipped me with the foundational tools to execute on the job through forming more of a basis in strategy and analytics,” explains Alfredo Sone Scassi-Buff, who earned his MBAi in 2023. “More importantly, it empowered me with actionable frameworks that I’ve implemented to assist clients. On the AI side, the program’s emphasis on both the technical intricacies of AI and overarching business strategies has been important not only in understanding how we can build AI products but also in how we can use AI to build products themselves.” Even more, the degree enabled him to develop a network – even at the Boston Consulting Group where he works. “I frequently collaborate with fellow Kellogg alumni at BCG, some of whom have become mentors who help me navigate and move forward in my career. Through engaging with diverse teams, delving into intricate data sets, or crafting visionary strategies for clients, the synergy between MBAi’s academic rigor and BCG’s practical expertise shines brightly.” Beyond cultural buy-in, deep resources, and creative programming, Kellogg’s staying power is rooted in its unique location. Fact is, Kellogg is an urban school, just a half hour north of Chicago. The Windy City, home to 15 Fortune companies and a robust startup ecosystem, is packed with every amenity: electrifying concerts and festivals, sprawling beaches and parks, unforgettable theaters and galleries, elite dining and shopping – and even occasionally relevant sports teams. Back at Northwestern, there is college town Evanston – slow, spacious, and peaceful. This creates a ‘best of both worlds’ dynamic where students can jump into the mix…or simply get away from it all. “Evanston’s tight-knit feel means that Kellogg students can really get to know each other both inside the classroom and out in the community,” explains Catherine Malloy, who’ll be graduating this spring. “I love knowing that I’m equally likely to see familiar Kellogg faces at a Cubs game and an Evanston coffee shop, and the camaraderie that comes with living within walking distance of my 600+ classmates is something that I haven’t taken for granted.” Next Page: EDHEC Business School Continue ReadingPage 1 of 10 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10